


as amber of embers glow

by nasaplates



Category: K-pop, SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Angst, Bad Puns, Birds, Depression, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magical Realism, Slow Burn, aftermath of breakup, two brief mentions of marijuana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-03 21:16:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21186122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasaplates/pseuds/nasaplates
Summary: Mingyu had a nice life, generally speaking. He had a nice apartment that he paid for with his nice job, got to go to nice parties with his nice friends, had his perfect boyfriend to share it with.His father got to say his son worked in engineering, and didn’t have to say a word about the cock sucking.The point is, Mingyu's life was everything it was meant to be, and that's why he didn’t know he was having a nervous breakdown until well after it was too late to stop anything.





	as amber of embers glow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agonies (Hyb)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyb/gifts).

> Written for SVT Jukebox Hozier round - Would That I
> 
> (LOVE YOU JUKEBOX MODS)
> 
> alright so this fic started off as a foray into jigyu, a way to attack hyb, and have some fun in the fantasy/magical genre which I haven't really tried before. it grew and grew until it became all of those things, and also a lot more, both in word count (my current longest fic!) and in meaning. there's some rough stuff talked about in here, emotionally, things that may hit home on a personal level, but I really really hope that in the end it's all treated with care and that it can be healing, as I hope everyone in the fic is healed.
> 
> thank you always to my beta readers and friends for holding my hand through all I write, especially this one, which put up a fight.
> 
> hyb, enjoy :)

_ You want a better story. Who wouldn't? _

_ A forest, then. _

\- Richard Siken

The trunk of the ash tree is warm against Mingyu's palm, dappled light running like rivers of gold through the deep rivulets of bark. Knuckle and flesh and delicate spiders of folded skin flexing as he digs his fingers gently into depressions they don't really fit in, body giving where hard tree-armor did not.

He murmurs a prayer to the tree, head tipped to speak back to the rustling hush of the canopy, leaves whispering permission. 

The handle of the axe is wood, too, hickory, long dead, kept smooth and shining by oil and lacquer, by hands, his hands, callused to match the unforgiving nature of woodgrain and torque, physics: work and resistance, coefficients of friction. Thinking such thoughts feels like speaking to a past life. The phantom of a tie chokes his throat until he clears it.

Mingyu swings and metal meets wood, hard and fast and deep for the fewest strokes. The stretch and pull and shudder of working muscles is familiar to him, satisfying in an elemental way, like the sun on his back, like the wind running reassuring fingers through his hair. Downward strokes near to the base, horizontal strokes to clear wedges of wood, the sweet sharp scent of green rich life striking through the air. Halfway through the trunk he straightens, switches hands, takes a single moment to breathe. Mingyu swings anew, hard and fast and deep.

With a final shuddering thud and a crackle of life's last gasp, the tree falls.

After a moment of reverent hush, birds flutter and sing in alarm and excitement, flying to and fro over Mingyu's head. He wipes his forehead off on the rolled up sleeve of his checkered flannel shirt, leans the axe against the weeping stump of the fallen tree.

Long legs make stepping through the tall grasses and wildflowers filling the meadow at the edge of the forest like wading through a calm lake. Bumblebees brush his outstretched fingers, bumping harmlessly along as he disrupts their perches on pretty petals.

When he gets to the place that feels most right, he lays down in the meadow, first sitting and then curling himself backwards, letting the stems and branches and flowers and bees rearrange themselves to the shape of his back. Safely ensconced in the arms of the meadow, Mingyu closes his eyes, sunlight glowing red behind his eyelids, dappled shade dancing with the breeze.

Mingyu has time to doze, mind gone hazy and soft, before a deeper shadow falls across his face, blotting out the sun. The arrival is heralded only by a puff of warm air, not a sound, not a scent. The birds may have sung more cheerfully, but it was hard to say for sure. The meadow is miles from the nearest house, even further from town. There isn't a drop of fear in Mingyu's heart.

Toes dig into Mingyu's ribs, a kick and a shove, somewhere between playful and a more serious exasperation. The corners of Mingyu's lips twitch.

A warm body flops to the ground beside Mingyu, shoulder to shoulder. Campfire scent and campfire heat and campfire flames in the center of his heart. 

Mingyu smiles.

*** 

Mingyu had a nice life, generally speaking. He had a nice apartment that he paid for with his nice job, got to go to nice parties with his nice friends, had his perfect boyfriend to share it with. He even got to keep the boyfriend _ and _ his father, something he'd come to believe was entirely hinged on all the years he spent in college cramming math into a reluctant brain until he landed a respectable job, a respectable apartment. An (almost) respectable life. 

His father got to say his son worked in engineering, and didn’t have to say a word about the cock sucking.

The point is, Mingyu's life was everything it was meant to be, and that's why he didn’t know he was having a nervous breakdown until well after it was too late to stop anything. He watched, in his mind's eye, every event that would break his life into pieces well before they happened.

Minghao sat him down in the middle of their apartment and carefully clasped his hands together, sitting in the black leather and chrome armchair instead of next to Mingyu on the couch. Mingyu remembered those clasped hands better than he remembered what he said. He watched those fingers interweave together, holding each other, holding each other back, maybe, wanting to reach out and cradle or strike or flutter away like birds.

"You've been...angry, lately," Minghao said, soft and level, gentle waves lapping at a shore, storm only a dark smudge in the distance. 

"Short, with me, with everyone. With yourself, most." Thumbs swiveled over each other, clockwise, then counter, then stopped, tips pressed together so tightly the nails turned white. 

"I've tried, I," Minghao paused and Mingyu looked as high as his lips, pressed together, wall containing the storm surge, threatening to break.

Mingyu knew what this was, he did. He could have made it easier for Minghao, in theory. But his mind was lead lined, like a coffin, like a tomb, like a bomb shelter in the basement of a rich man's house. He could never tell if he was trapped inside it screaming to escape, or left stranded in the fallout, radiation poisoning slowly doing him in.

He was tired. He was so fucking tired.

Minghao leaned forward. His hands were pressed, palm to palm, like a prayer to a god he was terrified wasn't listening. Like a last resort.

"I can't help you. I can't stay, either. We'll both drown, if I do."

Mingyu didn't fight him, didn't argue, didn't beg or plead or cry. He wanted to. He was so fucking angry, somewhere just out of reach he had broken every dish in the apartment, shattered Minghao's favorite things just to prove he had power, even here, even now, even at the end of it all. Some version of him in some quantum split of universes dividing from this moment kissed Minghao's mouth until all they could taste was blood. 

Shoulders like anchors Mingyu watched, frozen and mute, as the love of his life picked up his last box of things, and walked on slow, heavy feet out of his life.

Mingyu didn't know he'd been dragged out to sea until he looked around and saw nothing left of that nice little life, not a sign of shore. 

His friends didn’t choose sides so much as he chose for them, smiling wide and bright and saying _ no, thanks, I'm just going to stay in and read. _

He got passed over for a promotion. His father looked more worried than disappointed at the news.

He found a trinket, hidden behind what used to be Minghao's nightstand, a small wooden frog. Mingyu had made it for Minghao right after they first met, whittled it in a boring GE class they shared, shaving off delicate curls of wood, stealing glances at the nape of Minghao's neck. Desk and clothes and floor around him covered in sawdust, Mingyu tapped Minghao on the shoulder and handed him the frog, beaming as their hands brushed in the exchange. Minghao caressed it, fingers long and steady, cared for, caring. Minghao smiled at him, eyes considering, mouth soft.

Mingyu didn’t remember when Minghao stopped giving the frog pride of place, always bordering on frantic when he went missing from his perch. Mingyu didn’t remember when he stopped noticing what Minghao did or didn't do. 

Cradling that frog in his too rough palm, Mingyu didn’t know he was crying until the droplets fell and darkened the wood. 

He didn’t know he had drowned until his lungs were full of his own sorrow.

***

There was a real estate listing that caught Mingyu's eye for reasons he couldn’t even begin to explain, even if there was someone there to explain it to. 

It was a cabin, small, rustic, one bedroom, one bath, the entire rest of the space enveloped in a single room. There was a small workshop attached through a wooden door that looked like it was put up by a drunk man fighting a bear. It was in the middle of nowhere, next to a protected forest, felling rights and maintenance duties for 500 acres passed on to whoever owned it. 

Mingyu bought it with the single glass of wine he drank for his dinner still on his tongue.

Finalizing the purchase and packing up the amputated remainders of his life with Minghao, and getting it all to a part of the country he didn't even know _ existed _ before, took enough of his focus that he rode the momentum straight through. He pushed for the sale to be finalized within the week and the seller agreed with such enthusiasm it left Mingyu spinning.

He listed his own apartment, told his broker to take the first offer she got, and left, not even giving notice to his boss.

Mingyu didn’t tell a single person he was going, except for his mother, and even her he told via email and then promptly disabled notifications. It was stupid and reckless and possibly an extremely worrying sign of worsening depression, but he felt like there was a spark of light at the end of a spinning galaxy of dark.

When the owner of the cabin handed him the key, the man chuckled. "You won't need it," he said. "No one steals from this forest."

Mingyu only barely paid attention, could only muster a polite and likely idiotic smile and nod, too exhausted to manage anything more than that. The man clapped him on the shoulder, got into his truck and drove away.

Mingyu set down his final box of things right there in the driveway and walked, compelled, out into a meadow just a few hundred yards from the house.

Winter had gone but its remnants lingered, the soil still too cold for the grasses to do more than peek above ground as if to ask if the coast was clear. The trees that bordered the meadow were beginning to grow their buds, optimism for the future flowers quivering in the branches. Birds sang, some riotous, some cautious, some loud, some sweet.

Mingyu lay down in the middle of the meadow, alone for possibly the first time in his entire life, as far from anything he'd ever known as he could get. He closed his eyes and breathed, in and out, in and out. 

Heart free to ache as it wished, he listened to the world.

***

Unpacking happened slowly, in bits and pieces, living mostly out of boxes that he rummaged through as he needed something, and only then going to the trouble of finding it a home. 

He stubbed his toe on a box at 10am one morning, after having only dragged himself from his bed to pee. Pointlessly infuriated, he kicked the box, which only made his toe hurt worse and the box tip over, spilling its contents all over the floor in a great metallic crash.

Toe throbbing, muttering profanities, Mingyu realized it was the box of his woodworking tools, his set of chisels spread in a disorganized array. He picked one up and tested his thumb on the edge. They'd need to be sharpened, he decided, but they weren’t bad, considering the years of disuse.

An uncle had shown him how to work with wood. There was a picture of the two of them, yellowing in Mingyu's mother's house, of his uncle taking Mingyu's tiny fingers and wrapping them around a baby hammer, Mingyu's round cheeks under wide awed eyes. One of his earliest memories was of sitting in his uncle's shop surrounded by sawdust, gleefully pounding nails into scraps of wood.

Mingyu had kept up with the "lessons," slowly learning the craft, gathering some scars, some memories. When he went to college he thought, with the fierceness of a boy turned newly independent, that he would make a life of it, would sell his creations in a little shop in Seoul and make enough money for a family, maybe have a little girl of his own and show her how to whittle, cradle her small hands in his callused ones. He thought it wouldn't matter, what his father thought, if that warm and happy and sawdust scented world was his.

But then Minghao happened. And Mingyu had always been decent at math, not a natural, but the way equations slotted together made sense to him, like few things did, even if it felt dry and uncomfortable and drained him to do. So, he packed away the tools, and kept Minghao. His hands lost their calluses, and the points of his tools dulled with time, but he had a nice life, and his father told him he was proud to have him for a son.

Mingyu sat on the floor of a cabin Minghao would never see, that his father didn’t know existed. Neither of them would like it there. He could see their disappointment, could feel it like a weight on his chest, ribs compressed into soft vital flesh. 

Hands cradling his favorite whittling knife, Mingyu considered the point, pressed his thumb against it, harder in tiny increments, watching the flesh give. There's an equation for the pressure at which tension breaks and skin parts. Mingyu knew it, once.

He sheathed the knife again, breathed in sharp and clear. Movements oddly gentle and yet irreverent with familiarity, Mingyu gathered the tools back into the box and carried it through the drunken door to the workshop.

It was dusty, and cramped, and smelled weirdly of jerky and Skittles. But there was a window out to the forest, tables and cabinets, a pegboard on the wall. Mingyu's chisels, blades polished and handles oiled and tips sharpened, hung there perfectly.

***

When his pantry got so empty he started wondering if he could fit inside it, if he really curled himself up tightly enough, Mingyu decided he needed to leave the house and find his way to the local grocer. The real estate agent had given him a very cheerful talk about the surrounding community, the small town feeling of the place, the friendly locals, “Who are now your neighbors! Isn’t that great?”

It was a twenty minute drive through wooded roads until the town came into view, so quickly no one would have blamed him if he missed it. Mostly it consisted of a post office, and a log building that advertised itself as a “grocery, hardware store, hunting supplies depot, and purveyor of medicinal remedies!”

Mingyu parked in the small dirt space he assumed was meant to be a lot and trudged into the grocer, curling his shoulders so he fit more snugly into his coat. 

A small bell tinkled over his head when he pushed the door open, and a bright eyed blonde haired man with a gentle smile raised his head from whatever he was working on at the counter.

“Hello,” the man said, face open and honest. Mingyu found himself returning the smile more easily than he expected. “Can I help you with anything?”

“No, thank you, just,” Mingyu gestured with an elbow at the array of food lined shelves to one side of the store. “Food.”

The man even chuckled in a friendly way. “We do have plenty of that here, yes. Let me know if you can’t find anything you’re looking for.”

Mingyu nodded in thanks, figuring he didn’t need to know that he didn’t have a single clue what he was looking for. He perused the shelves, haphazardly picking up things, mostly junk food but he did try to grab some healthier options too. He didn’t realize he was humming every time he saw something especially tasty until the man at the counter coughed and Mingyu looked up to see he had covered his mouth attempting to hide a laugh that was entirely too obvious in the pinch of his eyes. Mingyu blushed.

“I’m, uh, new, here. Just moved in.” Mingyu wasn’t sure why he brought it up, really, except maybe to defend his excitement over fresh snacks. Something about explaining his stupid and impulsive life choices to this kind faced stranger filled him with dread. He put down the bag of pretzel snacks. They didn’t seem quite as appealing, now.

“Oh!” the grocer said. “You’re the guy that bought that cabin at the edge of the forest?” There was no judgment on his face, only interest.

Mingyu brought his purchases up to the counter. “Yeah, that’s me.” He chuckled awkwardly, not sure where to look while the man rang him up.

“Well, since you’re a neighbor now, I’m Joshua,” Joshua put a hand out for Mingyu to shake. His hand was soft, even his grip friendly. Once released, Joshua pulled up a pad of paper and a pen, wrote something down on it as he spoke. “If you ever need anything we don’t have in stock, or want a delivery set up, just give me a call, no trouble.” 

Mingyu blinked down at the paper in Joshua’s outstretched hand before he took it, studying the simple name and number written on it. It felt bigger than it was, such a simple gesture and no doubt a standard practice for a business that could only survive on local purchases. But his smile was shy and genuine when he looked up at Joshua again.

“Thanks,” he said, waving the paper stupidly before tucking it in with his now bagged purchases. Joshua’s head was tilted consideringly, something glittering in his smile that wasn’t there before.

“What’s your name again?” he asked, making Mingyu realize he never gave it in the first place.

“Sorry, Mingyu, Kim Mingyu,” he stammered, blushing.

Joshua’s smile turned into a grin. “Well, Mingyu, Kim Mingyu, don’t be a stranger, okay? That’s my personal number too, feel free to give me a call any time.”

It took Mingyu all the way out the door and to his car to wonder if Joshua had been flirting with him. _ No, _ he decided. _ Not with me. _

Mingyu was exhausted already, somehow becoming unused to social interaction within the span of a single week in the woods, but he had to get his address change set up, and that meant braving the post office.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he pushed open the post office door but it wasn’t a man about his age, leaned back in an office chair tossing pencils at the ceiling. There was no bell over this door, and the man didn’t seem to have noticed Mingyu come in, if the way he was singing girl group pop songs at the top of his lungs was any indication.

“Uh,” Mingyu said. The man whipped his head to look at him, eyes comically wide, note he was singing choking off to an _ eep _ as he fell backwards off his chair. One of the pencils fell from the ceiling. Mingyu was pretty sure he heard a low _ “ow.” _

The man’s face popped up above the counter again, charming grin firmly in place. There was a streak of pencil lead on one cheekbone. Mingyu coughed a laugh into his fist.

“Hello! How may I assist you, dear stranger, on this fine day?” The man didn’t take his eyes off of Mingyu as he kicked the toppled office chair and perched one hip onto the mail counter, still grinning widely.

Mingyu let himself laugh outright, and something in the man’s shoulders softened as he chuckled. “I, um, I just moved here and I didn’t even think of changing my mailing address until…” he thought, “yesterday. Ish.”

“I can definitely do that, that is a thing I can do,” the man said, already rummaging through open shelves of papers and forms, humming to himself. “I’m Junhui, by the way,” he turned, gesturing like a game show host to his nametag, _ Wen Junhui _ stamped into the little pin.

“Kim Mingyu,” Mingyu said, immediately after which Junhui loudly exclaimed _ Aha! _ and plucked a form from a shelf with a flourish.

“Here you are, Kim Mingyu, one change of address form for your enjoyment!” Junhui smiled as he plucked a pen from his front pocket and placed it neatly on top of the form on the counter. “Here, pull up a chair, and let me know if you need help.”

Mingyu filled out the form, Junhui taking about 15 seconds to go back to singing pop music, although quieter, as if in politeness so he didn’t disrupt Mingyu’s focus.

Form filled in, Mingyu handed it over and Junhui skimmed it, still singing, until he read the new address and stopped mid-line. “Oh!” he said. “You’re the guy that bought the haunted cabin!” He said it cheerfully, like it was a good thing and not that he just called Mingyu’s new home haunted.

“Uh,” Mingyu said. “Yes? What do you mean-”

“Ok, it’s not _ haunted _ haunted, you’d already have run away screaming if it was _ haunted _ haunted, you seem like a very reasonable guy, Kim Mingyu.” Junhui said.

“Um,” Mingyu frowned, trying to parse what the hell Junhui just said. “Thanks?”

“Don’t mention it! Listen, the place is just. Odd. The forest? Weird as all fuck.” Junhui’s eyes went wistful. “Love it out there. The birds stalk you, y’know?” He looked at Mingyu expectantly. Mingyu did not, in fact, know.

“Sure?” Mingyu said, just to say something.

“Anyway!” Junhui clapped and bent down to straighten his chair, flopping back into it and spinning once he had. “You’re all set, I’ll get this sent out tomorrow morning and you should start getting your regular mail deliveries within the week.”

“Th-thanks,” Mingyu stammered, completely confused and still weirdly charmed by the entire exchange. He looked back when he left the post office, and watched Junhui, belting out something by Twice, toss another pencil up at the ceiling, pumping his fist when it stuck.

***

Mingyu's phone rang on his drive back home, almost making him swerve into a tree when he glanced at it and saw Minghao's name staring back at him. 

It wasn't the first time Minghao had contacted him since the breakup, after the first month or so he’d texted once a week or so; street photography, a fashion shoot, weird road signs, the occasional selfie. Mingyu's replies were sporadic, and sometimes all he could muster was a thumbs up emoji, but it felt necessary, like a lifeline. It felt like a splinter, too, raw and aching, sliver of wood still wedged in his skin.

Mingyu didn't answer the phone. He told himself it was for safety on the road, but the heart attack pattering against his ribcage told him he'd have tossed his phone away like a snake even if he'd been sitting on his couch bored out of his mind.

The ringing stopped. There was no follow up chime indicating a voicemail, but five minutes later as he pulled into his driveway, gravel crunching under the tires, the phone pinged with a new text message. He sat, still and quiet, in the hush of his silent car. Two birds, a raven and a blue jay, watched him from the trees.

_ Give me your new address, you ass. _

Mingyu's lips curled slightly in the ghost of a smile. Before he could think himself out of it, he tapped out the address and sent it, no embellishment, no greeting. No apology. He was wrestling with whether or not Minghao deserved an apology after all when a reply came up.

Thumbs up emoji, and nothing else.

Pressing his head against the seat backrest, Mingyu smiled.

***

The next morning dawned bright and clear and directly through Mingyu’s bedroom window but, for the first time in weeks, Mingyu wasn’t around to be awoken by enthusiastic sunlight stabbing him in the eyes. He was already walking through the forest.

Five hundred acres, when it came down to it, wasn’t really a very large space, on paper, not even a full square mile. Mingyu should have been able to walk the entire perimeter in a relatively lazy hour, maybe a bit more.

Twenty minutes in, the GPS dot on his map on his phone stopped moving. Two hours in, and it still hadn’t moved.

Mingyu wasn’t worried about getting lost, although, objectively, he probably should’ve been. Right around the point where GPS stopped functioning, a narrow game trail seemed to sprout from the earth like a spring, travelling haphazardly through the trees and the deepening hush. He could see how someone might find it creepy, or weird, maybe even ominous, the way the birds watched his every move, and the trees seemed to lean in to get a good look at him. It felt comforting, to him. Like being surrounded by aunties and uncles, waiting to pinch his cheeks, or friends, waving their branches hello.

When his stomach rumbled at him in annoyance, Mingyu sat with his back to an especially large and gnarled oak tree and pulled out an apple, munching happily in the surprising warmth of the early spring afternoon. Apple finished, Mingyu pulled a small partially carved block of wood and his newly-sharpened whittling knife.

The carving was an old one, long abandoned, left at the bottom of his box of tools. It was a dog, labrador, looking ridiculous with only one ear freed from the wood, a sad cast to his roughed out eyes like a puppy left home alone when his owners had to go to work. The dog was meant to be a companion piece to Minghao’s frog, was even curved just a touch so when completed the dog would be able to nestle his head on top of the frog’s. Mingyu never got around to finishing it.

Hands out of practice with the motions of the knife, Mingyu had to focus intently on each slow stroke, shaking off soft curls of wood. He didn’t notice he had an audience until a chattering caw sounded above his head and his hand almost slipped in surprise. When he looked up, a raven was watching him, head tilted like a curious child.

“Oh,” Mingyu said. “Hello.”

The bird tilted its head to the other side and took two small hopping steps closer on its branch.

“You can watch,” Mingyu said. “I don’t mind.”

He felt silly for a moment, talking to a bird, but then the raven seemed to consider the offer, glancing around, ruffling its feathers, before hopping with its wings half raised until it was just over Mingyu’s right shoulder, peering down at Mingyu’s hands.

Mingyu smiled. “There you go. You’re a pretty thing, aren’t you?” And it was pretty, feathers so lustrous and dark they looked blue in the dappled light sifting through the canopy. The raven garbled a caw and jerked its head, almost in approval. 

It was true, that Mingyu didn’t mind the audience. He never had, always took comfort in others being interested in whatever he was doing. Even if it was an oddly curious raven, apparently.

The whittling went quicker and quicker as his muscles remembered what they were doing, what kinds of cuts to make where, how to hold the wood so he didn’t cut into something he’d already done, or into himself. The dog came out of the wood, little by little, light golden grain like fur shining in the sun. 

Once he was finished, Mingyu examined the dog one last time, turning him over in his hands, looking for places to touch up. It was rough work, definitely not sellable, but there was a charm to the dog’s roughness, his eyes happy, now that Mingyu had given them the proper shape.

“See?” Mingyu said, showing the raven the carving. “It’s okay, he won’t chase you, promise.”

The raven garbled an odd sound in response, leaning as far forward as it could to get a good look at the dog, shuffling one way on the branch, then the other. It straightened back up and looked at Mingyu, garbled that same odd sound, almost like it was trying to tell him something.

“I’m taking that as a compliment,” Mingyu said. The bird fluffed up its feathers.

A caw sounded in the distance, making the raven look up through the forest. It cawed back, took one last look down at Mingyu, and stretched its wings to fly through the canopy.

Mingyu watched it go, the dog still idly spinning in his fingers. 

***

The dog stared back at him that night, cheap wine swirling in his glass, head lightly swirling too. 

_ I could do it, _ he thought, imagining the tools in the little workshop put to use, sawdust in the air. Imagining packages carefully wrapped sending his creations to a loving home.

He drained the last of his wine and booped the dog on the nose.

"Fuck it," he said. The dog seemed to smile in agreement.

***

Mingyu found the axe leaned against the back wall of the workshop portion of the cabin, almost like it was waiting for him. It didn't take much work to clean and sharpen it, add some oil to the handle to make it gleam and take some of the roughness out of the neglected wood. 

Finding the right tree was a bit tougher. He wanted something small enough he could chop it up and haul the pieces easily, but big enough he could use it for firewood if he wanted, or a larger piece, if he was feeling ambitious. It was midday by the time he got to one that looked right, a bit sickly, maybe, several of the branches bare where its neighbors were swelling with new leaves. 

His first swings of the axe were tentative, jarring his arms with the impact, axe head barely entering the wood. On the third swing, the head got stuck, living tree seeming to pinch over the metal, holding it in place. Mingyu had to force it out, shoving it back and forth, finally yanking it free by putting one foot on the trunk and pulling full force. He almost took out his shin with the axe. A bird chirped and it sounded like laughter.

That was when the dam broke.

Suddenly, he was boiling with anger. Anger at the axe and the tree. Anger at the stupid woods and the stupid birds watching him struggle. He swung out his fury at himself for buying the cabin. Splinters and chunks of wood flew through the air in his rage at Minghao. He imagined his father's face in the tree and then he was angrier still for having done it. 

Mostly, it was nameless expressionless mindless fury, burning through his muscles like a wildfire, like it was going to consume him whole and leave him a pile of ashes in its wake.

The tree fell. Mingyu stared at it, panting, pretending the moisture in his eyes was sweat dripping from his forehead. A single tear fell, and he screamed and hefted the axe over his head just to bring it back down onto the tree again, chopping it into chunks small enough to carry. 

Eyes gone red and blurred, he didn't notice, at first, that sap was flying everywhere, oozing from the stump and the wounds in the tree, coating the ground, covering the axe head. His clothes were splattered with it, dark and thick, like blood. Mingyu imagined he looked deranged, murderous, lifefluid all over his face, his hair, even staining his teeth, most likely, with the way he couldn't stop baring them like some feral demented creature.

He heaved oxygen in and out of his body, and it sounded like sobs.

***

By the time Mingyu finished carrying the chopped up remnants of the tree, night had fallen, bringing an unseasonable chill with it. Exhaustion settled deep into his bones as he showered away the anger and the sadness, skin rubbed raw where he tried and failed to remove the last of the sap clinging to his skin. Even with the hot water pounding down on the wide expanse of his back, his body was still wracked with chills.

He'd brought in an armful of logs for a fire, piling them haphazardly in the fireplace. Wrapped in his bathrobe, pajamas underneath, even clad in fuzzy slippers, his fingers still shook as he tried to light a match, making him swear under his breath.

Finally, the match caught, and the kindling with it. Mingyu crouched in front of the fire, warming his hands with the meager heat of the newly born flames. Once the bigger logs caught, pitch black sap bubbling and dripping still, Mingyu moved back to the couch facing the fireplace. He watched the flames dance and grow, building as they consumed ever more of the wood.

It was quiet, in the cabin. Quieter than anywhere Mingyu had ever been in his life, only the occasional creak of an old house settling, and the pop and crackle of flames.

He thought he was imagining things, at first, just a trick of flames watched too long with tired eyes. Assumed that a long blink would make it all go away, would end the shape that seemed to form itself and grow, hold mass rather than simply leap and then die like the other flames did. 

It didn't.

When Mingyu opened his eyes again, an unmistakable something was growing in the fireplace, fire taking on weight, and shape, and form. Every hair on Mingyu's arms stood on end, a chill that had nothing to do with temperature racing down his spine.

In the space of three rabbiting heartbeats, the fire grew and grew and grew, until it was stepping out of the fireplace on distinctly humanoid legs. Arms and chest and neck and head came together, all aflame, all wild and raging and terrifying. 

With a loud wood-crackling _ pop _ the flame body hardened like crust on a lava spill, splinters of red and orange glowing in cracks in the black and ashy surface. One sudden motion and the blackness shattered, raining down ash into the room.

In front of Mingyu now stood a man, or what might have been a man, if it weren't for the fact he had literally formed himself out of flames right in front of him. His features, too, leant something to the otherworldly, like if Mingyu brushed the still flamingly orange hair behind his ears they'd be pointed, fae. The man was short, only just clearing the mantle, and he was clad all in skintight black, like if Peter Pan had gone on to become an assassin for hire.

He was breathtaking. Mingyu would have stopped in the street to watch him pass, if he'd seen him in Seoul, not necessarily because he was beautiful, no, that wasn't the word. He was enrapturing. Mingyu wanted, desperately, to know what he thought, about everything, how he looked in every kind of light.

The man was also, very clearly, absolutely fucking furious.

In a single blink, the man strode forward and Mingyu found himself hoisted up in the air by one hot hand around his throat, toes only barely brushing the ground. The motion was effortless, like Mingyu didn't weigh a thing.

Eyes flickering like candlelight on a lake during the new moon, face as hard as stone, the man was absolutely uncaring of Mingyu's scrabbling hands on his wrist. He pulled Mingyu down a few inches, not to afford him any relief, but to bare his teeth in his face.

"You asshole," the man hissed, mouth so close Mingyu could feel the heat of his breath across his face. Mingyu stopped scrabbling with his hands, simply gripped the man's wrist instead. "You didn't even ask the tree's permission first. That was a home, you fool. That was a life more meaningful than yours by far, pitiful _ human." _

He spat the last word like a curse, answering at least one of Mingyu's many questions. 

Mingyu remained enraptured by this, this _ being's _ righteous fury, even as his vision blurred, even as he lost all sight of anything but his face, at the end of a long dark tunnel.

🔥🔥🔥

Mingyu was dropped into an unceremonious heap on the floor, gasping and coughing like a landed fish. Throat tender and still hot, like a brand on his skin, Mingyu shuddered in a breath, and then another, curled over his belly like the vulnerable creature he was.

The fae’s feet were right there in front of his face when his eyes started working again, brain processing light properly, sound still a wash of blood rushing back where it once was stopped. They were perfectly normal feet, human seeming, maybe more well kept than your average man that looked to be around Mingyu’s age. But the skin was an ashy grey at the top, fading up to golden brown peeking just beneath the odd black tights, fading down to a deeper grey, like he’d walked through soot so often his skin had stained with it.

One of those feet lifted from the ground, toes and pad pressing on Mingyu’s forehead until he was forced to look up, past the athletic calf, up his legs, skittering over the bulge apparent in his clothes, up his toned torso, up into those shimmering dark eyes seeming to smirk down at him like he was a bug. Mingyu wondered if his forehead would be marked, smeared with charcoal.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” the fae said, no nonsense in his lilting voice.

“Y-” Mingyu tried, voice cracking the first time. He cleared his throat and tried again. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t know to ask.” His voice was wrecked and rasping. Mingyu tried not to think of other times his voice sounded like that, but adrenaline was adrenaline, and his body didn’t much care if it came from lust or fear for his life at the hands of a supernatural being.

“Hm,” the fae said, hands on his hips. He narrowed his eyes and then dropped his foot so suddenly Mingyu almost slammed his face on the floor. Mingyu scrambled to right himself, only coming up to his knees out of some instinctual respect. His head came well above the fae man’s hips.

“See that you don’t do it again.” His voice was ice, in stark contrast to his hair, which Mingyu would swear was shifting, like the flames that matched the bright coloring. The man turned back to the fireplace and a dagger of fear, even sharper than when he appeared out of the fireplace to begin with, stabbed into Mingyu’s heart.

“Wait!” He said, reaching out a hand. The man stopped, straightened up to his full height, still only just above the mantle. He raised an eyebrow, pursed his lips impatiently. 

“What?” The word was sharp and pointed, all of his teeth showing with enunciation.

“Teach me.” Mingyu had no clue he was going to say it until the words spilled from him. Once they started he couldn’t stop them. “Teach me how to speak to the trees.”

“Excuse me?” The fae said, face cracking from stone to bewilderment. 

“I want to learn,” Mingyu said, rising slowly as he did. “I didn’t mean to, to hurt, anyone, or, anything.” He didn’t stammer so much as he spoke slowly, gathering his thoughts like wildflowers in a meadow. “I live here now. I’m not going anywhere.” He frowned, thinking of the clause in his home purchase agreement stating he was responsible for maintaining the nationally protected property. “And if I’m supposed to be, I dunno, caretaker of the forest or whatever, I want to know how.”

The way the man stared at him, head tilted, eyes narrowed in consideration, reminded Mingyu, oddly, of the raven. Something flickered across his face like shapes forming in fire, only to disappear with the next flash of flame.

"And what will you give me in return?"

_ My heart, _ Mingyu thought, instantaneously, absurd gut reaction. He kept the words trapped behind his teeth. There was no point in offering something so meager. Or something already given.

Mingyu cast his eyes around the cabin, hoping to alight on anything worth giving, when most of what he saw was empty wine bottles and trinkets. His attention washed over the little carved dog, and then went back to it again.

"I'll make you something," he said, still staring at the dog, tongue lolling happily even though he had no one to rest his head on. Mingyu turned back to the man, still considering him, one eyebrow now raised. "Out of wood. Teach me how to ask for permission, and I'll make you whatever you want."

Both eyebrows now went up, eyes widening for just long enough to make Mingyu anxious. He'd thought it was such a small offer as to be almost as stupid as saying he'd give him his heart.

After a long pause, the fae man snorted and shook his head. Mingyu's heart sank. 

"You really are a fool," the man said, smiling crookedly, still with teeth. "Done."

Reaching to the back of his neck, he pulled, sharply, and drew a long back feather from hair much too short to have hidden it. With a movement too quick for Mingyu to even follow, let alone stop, he snatched Mingyu's left wrist, drew down his bathrobe sleeve, and pressed the feather in an iron tight grip onto the tender skin of Mingyu's inner forearm.

It burned like a brand, blindingly intense. Mingyu shouted and tried to yank his arm away but he couldn't, the fae's grip too fierce to break. A second of incredible pain passed that felt like a minute of agony, fire searing deep into Mingyu's flesh and muscle and bone, flooding his bloodstream and travelling to every extremity. 

And then, just as suddenly, it stopped.

The fae released Mingyu, revealing a charcoal imprint of the feather, sunk into his flesh like a birthmark, the skin smooth, the pain nothing but a memory.

"What the fuck," Mingyu gasped.

"You may call me Jihoon," the fae said, and then, because Mingyu's night hadn't been unbelievable enough already, he disappeared in an honest to god puff of smoke.

***

Mingyu woke up on the floor in front of the fireplace, back aching, mind foggy. He felt empty and lost, like he was missing something important he'd only just found.

The dream circled his mind as he stretched stiff limbs, flames and strange fae men and odd promises involving trees. 

The sleeve of his robe slipped up, revealing the feather, imprinted on his skin, reality crashing down upon his mind.

The emptiness didn't lessen. It washed over him, like his heart had become a throbbing wound.

***

The bell tinkled over his head again as he walked into the grocery store in town, the same mild cheer reflected in the smile on Joshua's face. Joshua nodded to Mingyu in hello. Mingyu gave something approaching a nod in return. He felt weighed down, still, drained and aching, and wondered if it showed on his face.

"Hey, good to see you," Joshua said. He pointed to the back toward the single large glass door freezer. "I got in some new ready made meals, figured you had enough on your plate with moving in and getting settled." 

Mingyu looked to the freezer and back at Joshua, heart warming at the thoughtfulness of the gesture. "Thank you," he said, voice small but genuine. He shuffled back and looked through the glass at the selection of microwave and oven-reheated meals. Somehow seeing the kindness only made him more tired.

He grabbed one of each type without really considering if he wanted them, because it was nice, and nothing sounded appealing to him at the moment, anyway. Shuffling through the aisles was quicker this time since he knew where his go-to snacks and cooking items were already.

Joshua was quiet as he rang up and bagged Mingyu's choices, and Mingyu didn't have it in him to fill the silence. Hands still resting on Mingyu's bag of groceries, Joshua just looked at him for a long moment before reaching under the counter and slipping something else into the bag. Before Mingyu could muster the energy to protest, Joshua pressed the bag into Mingyu's hands, letting his own hands linger where they now rested over Mingyu's. 

"Take care, Mingyu," Joshua said before releasing him with a smile and a nod.

When Mingyu got home and unpacked his groceries, he found a small baggie with two elegantly rolled blunts carefully tucked in with the produce.

***

A wide stretch of the property on the south side of the cabin consisted of run down garden beds, filled to the brim with weeds and grasses, some of the wood on the raised beds showing signs of disrepair.

Mingyu spent a week getting it fixed again; tearing up weeds, rebuilding where needed, breaking up hardened dirt, taking trips back to town to get manure and other amendments to enrich the soil and get it ready for planting. He spent most of the days elbow deep in dirt, or his back covered in sweat, or both. It was exhausting work, but with the sun shining and the birds singing in excitement at the day, it was easier to breathe.

He was digging down to tear out the roots of a particularly large and viciously pointy weed when Jihoon appeared at the edge of the garden. His hair was vibrant even in the daylight, and he was staring at Mingyu like he was late for a very important appointment and it was all Mingyu's fault.

Mingyu dropped the shovel on his own foot in shock.

***

_ Which of the dandelions are ready for a wish? _

Mingyu screwed his eyes shut tight and concentrated.

Languages were never Mingyu's strong suit. Chinese refused to order itself in Mingyu's mind, even though Minghao had spoken it nearly every day with friends and family, watching Chinese programs, listening to Chinese music. It wasn't that Mingyu was completely incapable, he did know his basics, knew basic English too. It just made him feel like someone was trying to put together IKEA furniture without having read the instructions at all, shoving parts together blindly, hitting them with a hammer, and hoping for the best.

Jihoon had taken Mingyu out to the meadow and gestured down at the handful of flowers turned to puffballs of seed. Mingyu hadn't asked what this had to do with the trees, because Jihoon already seemed like he was trying very hard to hide his impatience as it was.

After wandering around considering each flower, and then another five minutes of closed eyed contemplation, Mingyu gave up.

"I don't get it," he said, apologetic.

Jihoon eyes pinched, but it was hard to tell if it was in amusement or annoyance. He was sprawled on the ground, propped up on one elbow, the opposite hand twisting a blade of long grass between his fingers. His eyes were too sharp for the pose.

"I'm really bad with languages," Mingyu continued.

Jihoon barked a soft laugh. "It isn't like that," he said, firm but not unkind. He sat up and folded his legs beneath him, mirroring Mingyu's pose. Their knees were almost touching. "It isn't like any of your human tongue twisting. It's like," he paused to consider his words, narrowing his eyes sightlessly somewhere around Mingyu's chest. He made eye contact again, bright and searching.

"The first time you held new life in your hands, your heart spoke. It's like that."

Seungcheol had a daughter, in Mingyu's old life, not long after he graduated and married his college sweetheart. A beautiful baby girl. The first time Mingyu met her, she wrapped her impossibly tiny hand around his pinky finger and blinked up at him in awe. Nothing had ever made him feel the way he felt in that moment, like he was enormous and minuscule, like he would give her his pinky to keep if she only indicated it was something she would like.

"So," Mingyu said, considering. "A feeling?"

He looked up through his eyelashes at Jihoon, grinning just a little.

Jihoon narrowed his eyes alarmingly and then blinked before he shook his head and put his face in his hands. "Hopeless," he said. Between the parted fingers, he was smiling, just a little.

That lesson ended not long after, Jihoon standing, Mingyu leading the way back to the cabin, telling him the story of Seungcheol's daughter.

"Do you think that will-" Mingyu turned, only to stop mid sentence. There was no one behind him. Jihoon was gone. "-help," he finished, flat and empty.

***

Jihoon, as Mingyu found out in bits and pieces over the next month, had an important job in the fae realm. He wouldn't say anything specific about it, always turned hard and sharp when pressed too hard about it. 

"It isn't for you to know, _ human," _ he had said the last time Mingyu asked. Mingyu had finished that lesson, _ Ask the meadow for a flower, _ in silence, until Jihoon, muttering under his breath, coaxed a daisy from the earth and tossed it to a startled but smiling Mingyu.

His job, duties, _ position, _ whatever it was, meant that his visits were sporadic, never more often than once a week. The rest of the time, Mingyu worked on the garden, sowing seeds and watering them, protecting the sprouts from hungry birds, or carving and whittling trinkets on pieces of scrap wood once the sun set.

The birds followed Mingyu around, watching him garden and whittle, soaring next to his car when he went into town, flitting from tree to tree when he walked the forest. Mingyu got suspicious of them, especially after one visit from Jihoon when he looked at him askance and said, "Any progress?" with a casual air. 

The day before Mingyu had sat in the meadow for an hour, practicing breathing techniques Minghao had taught him, back when he was trying to get him to meditate away his clinical depression. When that failed, spectacularly, as it always did, Mingyu had burst out, _ "Fuck you you fucking fucks!" _ at the flowers and stomped back into his cabin to down an entire bottle of wine. 

Mingyu had narrowed his eyes at Jihoon and said, "No," primly, but filed away the information for later.

Walking through the forest, the trees having bloomed and dropped their flowers already, petals still strewn like a carpet on the forest floor, Mingyu watched the birds watch him.

"I know you're telling on me now," he said to a pretty little bluebird. He turned to the raven on a branch behind him and pointed accusingly. "You too, and I thought we were friends." The raven bobbed its head and ruffled its shoulder feathers with a garbled cluck.

"So," he said, looking between the two birds. The birds looked back. "Since you're so smart, tell me this: why do seagulls fly over the sea?"

Mingyu paused, eyebrows raised, hands on his hips. "Nothing?" 

The birds shuffled a little but made no sound in response. 

"Because," he said, drawing the word out, "If they flew over the _ bay _ they'd be _ bagels!" _

The birds continued to stare at him in silence. 

"Get it? Bay gulls?"

With a tiny chirp, the bluebird flew away, disappearing off into the trees. Mingyu and the raven looked at each other.

"Well, I thought it was funny," Mingyu said, before continuing on his walk. "Come on then," he said over his shoulder, "let me tell you the one about the raven and the telephone pole."

The next time Jihoon visited, appearing at the edge of the garden again, Mingyu was chattering away to an odd flock of five birds of different shapes, sizes and colors, telling them all about the eggshells he was putting down in hopes he'd protect the plants from snails. Jihoon looked at him differently, considering, head cocked, an almost smile on his face.

Mingyu turned back to the birds, hooking a thumb at Jihoon. "Well, I better make like a tree and leaf." 

Jihoon snorted in disgusted laughter, already shaking his head as he walked away when Mingyu turned to look at him. Mingyu grinned happily, and followed.

***

The sound of a surprisingly well sung and _ incredibly _ loud solo Blackpink cover announced Junhui’s arrival well before the knock on Mingyu’s door. When he opened it, Junhui was standing there in his post office uniform, arms full of packages and grinning enormously.

“Hello there!” he said. “I come bearing gifts!”

“Come in, come in, just, uh, set them anywhere,” Mingyu waved Junhui in and then quick-stepped back to the stove where a simple pot of soup was simmering. Junhui shut the door behind him with a precisely executed kick that he finished with spinning flare made even more impressive by the fact Mingyu knew the packages he was carrying weren’t light. After getting the wifi hooked up (which ran surprisingly well considering how deep in the middle of nowhere he was) he’d ordered a handful of things off the internet; a few tools, lacquer, some other odds and ends, and a fire extinguisher because he’d rather have one on hand than have to spray a garden hose into his shop because he accidentally sparked off his pile of sawdust and wood shavings.

Junhui set down the packages and then looked at him while Mingyu stirred the soup.

“You’re looking well,” he said. “Skip in your step, color in your cheeks, pep in your...pepper.” He somehow made all of that sound like they were euphemisms even though Mingyu could not for the life of him figure out _ what _ they would be euphemisms _ for. _

“It’s got me wondering,” Junhui continued with mock thoughtfulness, “just what exactly is in these packages, hm?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Didn’t take you for a size queen but if this is a dildo,” he picked up the box Mingyu knew had the fire extinguisher in it, needing two hands to do it, and whistled while making lewd motions with it, grin so silly Mingyu couldn’t help but snort in surprised laughter.

“Fuck off,” he said, laughing still. “It’s not a _ dildo,” _ he said, blushing lightly in spite of himself, hoping the heat from the stove would cover for any redness in his cheeks. “And quit molesting my stuff.”

Junhui chuckled and put the package down, lifted his hands in the air. He made his way over to Mingyu at the stove, shuffle-stepping and whistling low, keeping his hands in the air for no reason Mingyu could see. Once he got close enough, he put his face right down into the steam coming from the soup pot and took a deep breath in.

“Mmmmm!” he hummed delightedly as he came back up to standing. He squinted and smacked his lips lightly as if he’d taken a taste instead of just sniffed the soup. “Needs more spice,” he declared, turning to look at Mingyu. Mingyu looked back, and then frowned down at the soup.

“Uh, what?”

“More spice!” Junhui said. “You’d be able to smell it if it was spicy enough! Spice is good! Blood pumping, sinus clearing, tastebud delight...ing!” He was waving his hands in the air, nearly whacking Mingyu and the soup pot both. 

“Spice!” He declared like he’d just made an excellent argument. They stared at each other, the soup still bubbling quietly.

“You’ll thank me,” Junhui said, dropping his hands only to clap Mingyu on the shoulder in a comradely fashion. “Anyway, let me know if any spooky shit happens out here, I’ll make popcorn, I have a popcorn maker, it’s awesome.”

Mingyu blinked and wondered if a short man with some kind of supernatural powers walking out of his fireplace, forming himself out of flames, threatening him, and then becoming his Talking To Nature tutor counted as ‘spooky.’

“Sure,” he said, slowly.

“Great!” Junhui said, beaming and clapping Mingyu’s other shoulder as he walked past him to the door. “I’ll fire up the ol’ hot dog maker too, make it a date!”

The door shut behind Junhui before Mingyu could process the idea of homemade hot dogs and popcorn being a _ date. _ Mingyu shook his head, and rooted through a drawer for some extra spices to add to his soup.

***

Junhui’s comments about how well Mingyu looked and the ‘pep in his pepper’ circled Mingyu’s mind. It was true, he supposed, that when he took tally of the quality of his days, there were more good ones, now, than when he first showed up at the cabin. Definitely more than the days before, making a mausoleum out of his old apartment. Some of the time he was happy, content, easily able to look out at his life and smile in satisfaction, warm to the core. Most days it was more acceptance than true happiness that greeted him at the end of the day, stepping through life with deliberate contentment, distracting the darkness with long walks and projects that took all his focus.

There were still days, though, that dawned empty and broken from the start, leaving him with only the energy to pull the covers over his head and hope the gnarled and twisted thing that had taken root in his chest eventually left.

Jihoon appeared on one of those days, walking in through the front door calling his name. Mingyu couldn’t bring himself to move from his bed. He couldn’t even really bring himself to feel ashamed of that. There was only so much shame a heart could carry at any given time.

“Mingyu?” Jihoon asked from the doorway to his bedroom, closer to tentative than Mingyu ever imagined he would hear. 

Mingyu sat up, tugging on the comforter so it stayed wrapped around his shoulders, trapping whatever meager warmth he could manage under the covers.

“Sorry,” he said, “I’m, um. Unwell.” He _ felt _ unwell, more than just mentally, like his body was poisoned along with his spirit, joints aching, headache setting up camp behind his eyes.

Jihoon gave him a long look. Mingyu looked back, letting himself trace the lines of his face with his eyes. Jihoon stomped out of the room, and before Mingyu could decide if he was relieved or disappointed, the sound of slamming cupboard doors came from the kitchen. There was an alarming clang, followed immediately by an “OW, fuck,” that finally gave Mingyu the energy to leave the bed, wrapping the comforter around his shoulders like a cape.

When he shuffled into the kitchen, it was to see Jihoon, shirt off and now wrapped several times around the handle of one of Mingyu's pots. His back was to Mingyu, and its broad expanse was covered in ashy grey markings. They were hard to look at, like optical illusions that made static lines appear to be moving, or images that changed from an old woman to a duck depending on what part you focused on. Ridgid bark lines became a scattering of feathers became ripples in a pond became swirling eddies of smoke. The muscles underneath were hard and lean, each one strong and defined under the shift of skin and grey.

Jihoon hissed and shook the hand that had been holding the swaddled pot handle.

"What's wrong?" Mingyu said, coming closer. The smell of canned soup filled the air as he got nearer to the stove. Jihoon glanced at him over his shoulder, grimace on his face.

"Iron," he said, showing Mingyu his palm, red almost to blistering. "Not so good for fae folk." He gave a rueful grin, and Mingyu cupped his palm in his own hands, sucking air through his teeth in sympathy. 

"It's alright," Jihoon said softly. "It was stupid of me." Mingyu looked up at him and his breath caught in his throat at the nearness of their faces. They watched each other, Jihoon's hand still sheltered in Mingyu's.

"Why soup?" Mingyu asked. Jihoon rolled his eyes and gently took his hand back.

"Because it helps," he said as he stepped away, picking up Mingyu's travel mug from the counter. He flicked his eyes back to Mingyu and held. "Go on, get some shoes on at least. I want to show you something."

Mingyu sighed as he shuffled off, suddenly exhausted again. Orders made it easier, though. He didn't have to wonder why he was getting dressed. He was doing it because Jihoon wanted him to.

Jihoon met him at the front door, shirt back on and sleeves tugged down to his wrists. He handed Mingyu the mug, lid twisted tightly to keep the heat in, and started walking off toward the trees, confident that Mingyu would follow. Mingyu did.

They didn't walk far, which Mingyu was silently grateful for. At the far end of the meadow, Jihoon pointed at the base of an oak and said, "Sit," so, Mingyu did, bending still aching joints until he was settled on the ground. Jihoon looked down at him and said, "Stay." A playful grin danced at the edges of his mouth.

Mingyu, trying not to smile, curled into himself and uncapped his mug, muttering, "M'not a dog," into his soup.

Jihoon took a handful of steps into the meadow and stood absolutely still. Mingyu sipped at his soup, watching, until Jihoon started to sing.

Mingyu thought, later, after the mesmerizing song was over, that if nothing else about him had convinced him Jihoon was not of this realm, if he hadn't seen his back, or been branded by a feather he pulled from under his skin, or seen him form himself out of flames, his voice would have been enough. It was sharp and bright, clear, melodic. He made it sound, somehow, like he was singing harmonies, alone in that meadow, drawing in voices from somewhere beyond and releasing them out of his own throat.

It was so stunning Mingyu didn't notice at first that the birds were responding to him. They flitted, to and fro around him, coming down from the trees and up from the lower bushes where they had been foraging. One by one in neatly choreographed chaos they dropped offerings at Jihoon's feet. Slim branches, wildflowers, leaves both large and small, all in a pile on the ground.

When the song drew to a close, silence rang through the woods and the meadow, like even the trees had been holding their breath as they listened.

Mingyu burst into helpless applause, sending the birds back to their perches and making Jihoon turn around. Jihoon looked at him, face twitching through expressions, landing on something Mingyu might call fond.

"That was _ amazing," _ Mingyu said, awed. Jihoon bent to pick up the things the birds had brought him and came walking back to him, grinning wider than Mingyu had yet seen.

"Thanks," he said, sprawling onto the ground and shifting through his prize. He picked up two of the branches and began twisting them together, adding in a third, and then a fourth, continuing until he'd made a braided circlet.

They sat together, Mingyu back to sipping his soup and watching Jihoon pull in each of the items into what was shaping up to be a skillfully woven crown.

"So, what's the lesson?" Mingyu asked into the comfortable silence. Jihoon put the finishing touches on the crown, a bright yellow daisy its final jewel.

"No lesson, idiot." Jihoon turned and set the crown on Mingyu's head, irreverent and rakishly crooked. He looked at his handiwork, eyes wandering over Mingyu's face, and then leaned back against the tree and looked to the meadow. "Enjoy the fucking day."

They sat together, pressed shoulder to shoulder, until the sun cast the world into a honeyed glow, and Mingyu forgot, just for a moment, that there was ever a darkness in his mind in the first place.

***

Mingyu made progress in leaps and bounds, one day the dandelions said nothing to him at all, and the next he hovered a hand over one and _ knew. _ When he plucked it, he wished for a red rose, and blew the seeds to the wind, careful to dislodge each and every one. When he looked down at the place is other hand rested on the ground, a rose was climbing toward the sky, a single perfect bud appearing and unfurling its petals to the sun.

Jihoon let him try the trees, next, and Mingyu pressed an open palm to the bark of a young birch, and listened. _ I always dreamed of being a bird, _ came through the breeze in Mingyu's hair, and the rustle of the leaves and the stirring of feeling that traveled from his palm to his heart. A branch dropped to the forest floor. Mingyu knew even before he picked it up that it would be perfect for whittling.

Overjoyed, Mingyu turned to Jihoon and made a face so thrilled it was silly, his cheeks hurting with it. Jihoon laughed, long and loud, and so Mingyu, helpless to the riot of warmth exploding in his chest, did it again.

Later, as Mingyu was taking the leaves and smaller branches from the wood and finding the pieces he wanted to cut out of it, he caught Jihoon looking at him, something unfathomable on his face. 

Mingyu went back to his work, knowing Jihoon would be gone when he looked again. Some enormous feeling spread from his nape to his fingertips. It felt almost like hope.

***

There was a fox family living in a burrow under a dead tree at the far side of the meadow. Mingyu had noticed them back in the spring when he'd been walking the property, taking note of the place. Two dark grey fluffy heads had popped out of the burrow, only to shoot back down again, a skeptical mother's orange fur rising out of the burrow to give Mingyu a hard look. The tree had worried him because it was enormous and bleached with death, root system no doubt useless and brittle.

He'd gotten used to talking to the wildlife in the months since, had gotten used to the fox family too, watching through spring and summer as the cubs grew, three of them, playing and tackling one another, yipping in delight when their mother came back with fresh food. Now, nearing autumn, the cubs were almost fully grown, gangly with adolescence. Mingyu had stopped worrying about them, mostly, once the cubs grew large enough to start being a nuisance to the birds.

"Be careful of that tree," he reminded the foxes one late afternoon, the scent and zing of an oncoming storm thick in the air. One of the cubs bit another in the ear, starting a wrestling match.

The storm, when it hit, was vicious, winds howling like angry spirits, rain lashing at the windows, pounding on the roof. The sound was apocalyptic, like no storm Mingyu had experienced before. He went to sleep uneasy, waiting for something to happen, though he didn't know what. 

Scant hours later, Mingyu was woken from fitful sleep by a great creaking _ crack _ ending in a tooth chattering _ THUD. _

Mingyu shoved his feet into his boots and grabbed a flashlight before he could think twice, knowing it was the dead tree that had fallen. He took off sprinting into the night, not even taking the time to snag a coat. He was drenched within steps, pajamas soaked through, mud splattering his legs.

The beam of his flashlight caught on the fallen tree at last, and he saw that, just as he feared, one of the enormous branches had snapped and blocked the entrance to the burrow.

Mingyu dug without hesitation, hands and clothes and face caked in mud, only the beam of the flashlight thrown on the ground to see by. He finally cleared enough loose mud and made himself enough space that he could shove one shoulder under the branch, dig in his heels, and _ push. _ Muscles straining, he grunted with effort, the branch lifting from the ground slowly but steadily. Finally, when Mingyu was certain he couldn't force the branch higher by even one more inch, the mother fox came wriggling free, the three cubs following, all of them sprinting off to a safer harbor in the night.

With a squelching slap, Mingyu rolled out from under the branch and let it fall, sitting down hard in the mud. He leaned back against the tree panting, head tipped back to let the rain pelt his face. His arms shook with fatigue, the muscles in his legs and back tingling.

Mingyu let out a sigh, blowing dripping moisture off his upper lip.

Just when he'd finally gotten his heart rate down, another terrifying _ crack _ rended the night.

Mingyu had enough time to snap his eyes open and fling an arm over his face before another broken branch came spiraling through the black and howling night to crash down on top of him.

The world went dark.

🔥🔥🔥

Mingyu was warm when he came to, wrapped in a blanket, a fire crackling in the grate. He ached, head throbbing with a pulse of its own, back sore from digging, arm twinging even without him moving it. But he was warm. 

It took him a moment to realize his head was in someone’s lap, the back of his shoulders pressed to an unnaturally warm belly, a single hot hand on his chest over the blanket. Mingyu turned his head and winced with a stab of pain in his neck.

Jihoon’s hand tightened over his pectoral, his other hand cupping the back of Mingyu’s head supporting him as he turned. When Mingyu opened his eyes again, Jihoon was looking down at him, a furrow deep in his brow.

“You dumbass,” Jihoon said, the soothing back and forth of his thumb over Mingyu’s forehead at odds with the words. “You utter buffon. You absolute fucking _ moron _.” Mingyu closed his eyes and swallowed. Jihoon tugged on his hair, just enough to make him snap his eyes open again. “You almost died.”

Mingyu looked up at him, trying to convince himself he wasn’t imagining the very real concern he saw there, hidden in the flames in Jihoon’s eyes. 

“The foxes?” Mingyu croaked through a parched throat. He coughed, the motion making his entire body throb. Jihoon hissed through his teeth and rubbed his hand over Mingyu’s chest.

"They're fine," Jihoon said, eyes narrowing from concern to annoyance, his hand stopping on Mingyu's chest. Mingyu sighed in relief and closed his eyes, letting himself loosely grip Jihoon's wrist. Wind blew whistling breaths through the cabin, the storm letting out its final wails. 

"Why did you sprint out into a thunderstorm in your jimjams, hm? What made you think that was a good idea?" Jihoon's voice rolled over Mingyu, making him starkly and unflinchingly honest.

“They needed me. The foxes. I had to.”

Jihoon was silent for so long Mingyu opened his eyes to look at him. His hand was now clenched in Mingyu's blanket, and he was breathing hard through his nostrils. “And what about me?” Jihoon's voice was cold. His eyes were not.

Mingyu snorted even though it sent a surge of pain to his forehead. “You don’t need me,” he said, not even trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “I’m a shitty carpenter and a shittier pupil you’re only tutoring out of some weird fae deal you made because I killed one of your tree friends. I’d have thought you’d be glad to be done with me.” 

He stared up at the ceiling past Jihoon’s head, swallowing hard against the lump of certainty in his throat. It took him a long time to realize how hard Jihoon was breathing, how tightly he was gripping the blanket covering Mingyu.

“How’s your head?” Jihoon’s voice was angry, sharp, cold like ice picks held in the hand of someone who desperately wanted to stab something with one. Mingyu snapped his eyes to Jihoon’s and a frisson of something too hot to be fear raced down his spine.

“Fine, I-”

“And your arm?” Jihoon interrupted him, his pupils black as pitch, the firelight reflected in them dancing a violent tango. It wouldn’t have mattered if Mingyu’s arm was in shredded tatters. It wouldn’t have mattered if Jihoon asked him if he could _ fly. _ He’d have done unspeakable, impossible things to feed the heat coiling in his belly. Mingyu freed an arm from the blanket, reached tentative fingers to finally brush against Jihoon’s jaw.

“Kiss me,” it came out clear and pained in the close air of the cabin, like the pop of firewood crackling in the grate. “Please. Or don’t. Anything, anything, I-”

It was impossible to know who initiated the kiss; Mingyu surged upwards, Jihoon dipped down, and they crashed together, mouths already parted.

It was a violent kiss, hungry, Jihoon’s arm vicelike around his wide shoulders holding up most of Mingyu’s weight, Mingyu’s hand iron tight in Jihoon’s hair, Jihoon’s tongue hot as flames licking into Mingyu’s mouth. Starving for touch, for the clean smoke taste on his tongue, a pit low in his belly opening like the maw of a famished thing, Mingyu twisted to sit up and change the angle of the kiss when a flash of white hot pain wracked him, hip to head, and made him gasp and pull away.

Jihoon tugged his head back immediately, sharp eyes roaming Mingyu’s face, reading the pain etched there where Mingyu couldn’t even begin to hide it.

“You stupid, stupid man." He was panting, just enough to be gratifying, Mingyu's heart pounding in his ears, his temples, and lower in spite of it all. Jihoon's hands cupped Mingyu's face, fingers curling into his hair. He pulled Mingyu forward and pressed hot lips to his forehead, tipped him down to feather pressure and breath over the lump on the crown of his head.

Exhaustion washed over Mingyu, sending all the heat and want washing down through him, transmutation into gentle comfort and the warmth of affection.

"Rest, my noble fool," Jihoon said, cradling Mingyu as he laid his head back down onto Jihoon's lap. With steady hands he twitched the blanket back around his shoulders. Mingyu closed his eyes.

"I'll be here when you wake."

***

Bird song and a splitting headache greeted Mingyu with the morning light. He groaned deeply and swore, sitting up before he could really appreciate that his head had still been pillowed on a warm thigh. There was no room for regret in the clanging of his skull, but he forced himself to crack one eye open and grimace apologetically.

Jihoon was looking at him assessingly, one hand loosely wrapped around Mingyu's bicep like he'd keep him where he was by force if he had to. A frisson of something sharp shivered up Mingyu's spine. He wanted a kiss, jaw aching with it, but he wasn't brave enough to try to steal one.

"Hm," Jihoon hummed. "You look like shit."

Mingyu chuckled and then hissed through his teeth at the full body ache the motion set off. Even through the pain and the golden daylight, he could see dark circles blooming under Jihoon's eyes, could see his hair had faded from flame to a muted yellow, almost white. He wasn't brave enough to mention that, either.

"M'fine," he muttered, quelling the urge to flop back onto Jihoon's lap and whine. "You stayed," he blurted and immediately blushed.

Jihoon looked at him like he was a stupid but infuriatingly cute puppy and then handed him a glass of water from the side table. Mingyu shifted so he was sitting up on the couch, shoulder to shoulder with Jihoon, and drank greedily.

"I have to go," Jihoon said it matter of factly, businesslike, like he'd be frowning at his watch if he wore one. Mingyu wondered when he'd figured out how to read the regret in the corners of Jihoon's eyes.

"Ok," Mingyu muttered, sunk low on the couch cushions, staring at his hands fiddling with the empty glass. Two fingers tipped his chin until he faced Jihoon. He had to look up at him, just a little, he was slouched so much, Jihoon's back ramrod straight, gaze intense. 

Jihoon took hold of his jaw with slow, deliberate movements of his fingers and pulled Mingyu forward until there was no more space between them.

This kiss was different than the last, not a battle, but a claiming, slow and deliberate and certain. Mingyu offered no resistance, kindling nestled in with an ember, consumed little by little by flame. Even after the kiss ended, Jihoon's thumb brushing over Mingyu's swollen lips, he kept his eyes closed, face tipped up, open and waiting.

Hot breath crossed Mingyu's face, Jihoon sighing and carding his fingers through Mingyu's hair.

"Where the fuck did you come from?" The murmur was quiet, reverent and deep.

Mingyu opened his eyes, raising his eyebrows and grinning gently.

"Are _ you _ really asking _ me _ that?" he asked, incredulous.

"Well," Jihoon said, releasing Mingyu with regretful fingers and standing on slow moving legs. "Clearly _ I _ came from your fireplace."

Mingyu barked out a laugh, mostly to dislodge the lead stone in his chest begging him to reach out to Jihoon and never let go.

"I'll be back," Jihoon said. He was somber, as serious as Mingyu had ever seen him. It was the first time he'd ever said he'd come back, and it felt important, somehow, heavy. Mingyu watched him adjust his shoulders to the weight of the promise.

"Okay," Mingyu said, hoping the acceptance might make whatever was going through Jihoon's mind easier to carry. "I'll tell your bird spies some really terrible jokes until you do."

Jihoon cracked an enormous smile and his cackling laugh echoed through the air of the cabin even after the smoke-scent of his disappearance was gone.

***

Mingyu filled his time waiting for Jihoon by carving. He started with the branch that fell for him, from the tree that always wished to be a bird. The first was rough, a small songbird that emerged slowly from the wood, curious and a bit misshapen. A few more followed, these polished with practice, sanded with increasingly fine grit sandpaper, until the wood smoothed to something almost unrecognizable as wood, soft as butter against the skin. He brushed a trio of them, each with their own personality and flair, with several thin coats of lacquer, enough to protect them and allow the grain of the wood to shine like sleek and living feathers across their small bodies.

That branch used, he went out and walked the forest in the late summer heat, letting his hands brush the trunks, chattering inconsequential nonsense to the birds that flitted from branch to branch. Finally he came to one that spoke to him in nothing but a flash of an image of a roaring lion so vivid he jumped, heart rate skyrocketing. A large branch came down from the tree, and he took it dutifully back to his workshop to carve.

When the nights grew longer than the days and the scent of autumn was on the wind, Mingyu took the plunge and created a website to sell his work from. It felt like opening a door he’d closed at 19 and looking into a future he’d stored neatly in a box. He closed the tab on his newly minted shop, and went out to the forest to think.

The path he walked was familiar by then, well worn, grasses and shrubs growing neatly to either side of the thin path his feet had trodden down. It felt no less magical, walking through the wood, the deep hush filtered by slanting sunlight, punctuated only by animals, and the birds that had become his constant colorful twittering shadow. 

When Mingyu came back, morning melting into afternoon, he took a path along the edge of the meadow, and stopped, for no reason he could discern, in front of an ash tree. 

_ You’ll need your axe. _

The thought entered his mind in a voice that wasn’t his own. He looked up through the whispering leaves at the blue blue sky above. With a nod to the canopy, and a gentle brush of the trunk of the tree, he walked to the cabin, took up his axe, and returned.

Mingyu fitted his palm over the trunk of the tree, pressing his fingers into the gaps in the bark.

_ I wish, _ the tree asked in words that weren’t words, _ to be a chair to cradle someone in love. _

When the tree crashed to the ground, Mingyu smiled, still breathing hard from the strain of wielding the axe, and went to lay in the meadow.

***

"You came back," Mingyu says. A bee buzzes near enough he can hear it happily humming through the sun.

"Shut up," Jihoon sighs. He shifts in the grass, their shoulders rubbing together. There's a line of heat from shoulder to elbow, another where Jihoon has casually slung his calf over Mingyu's shin, possessive.

Mingyu opens his eyes, stares up at bright puffy clouds gliding through a flat and brilliant sea of blue blue sky. He turns his head and traces the sharply ethereal slopes and angles of Jihoon's features. Jihoon smiles like he can feel Mingyu's eyes on him, and for all Mingyu knows maybe he can. One dark and fiery eye opens, eyebrow lifting to match, and Jihoon turns to look back at him.

"I'm glad," Mingyu says, soft and sincere.

Their bodies come together slow as the clouds traversing the sky, Jihoon rolling himself on top of Mingyu, never once touching him until he can press his mouth to him with all the weight of his attention. Mingyu's hands travel the muscles of Jihoon's thighs where his legs are bracketing Mingyu's hips, while Jihoon, mouth hot and earthy and intoxicating, slowly but surely burns every other kiss in his life down to cinders and ash.

He doesn't know how long he lays there in the grass, burning from the inside out, touching anywhere he can reach. It might be an eternity. Worlds may have ended, new ones springing forth from the rubble. They lose clothing, inch by inch, until they're naked, every bit of them exposed to the air, and all that matters is Mingyu's jaw aches with a new and familiar hunger.

"Come here," Mingyu says, pulling away just far enough to release the words to the light. "Want to taste you." Jihoon looks down at him like he's said something magical, darkness spreading like ink through his irises.

Jihoon's cock bobs as he moves up Mingyu's body, full and red and glistening with precome at the tip. Mingyu sits up in a half crunch, hands wrapping reverently around Jihoon's waist. It's a shock, seeing how close his thumbs are to each other, being faced with the reality Jihoon is small, slight, when he always seems so huge, in Mingyu's eyes.

His cock tastes bitter and sharp, and Mingyu moans at the first heat of it in his mouth. Jihoon threads his fingers through the hair at the back of Mingyu's head, hot on the back of his neck, encouraging and steady.

Mingyu doesn't linger, wanting to taste the deeper musk of him. He leans back and cups Jihoon's ass, pressing in request at the flesh there. Jihoon moves forward, following Mingyu's mouth, until Mingyu can nose the tender skin of his perineum. He parts Jihoon's cheeks as he lowers himself onto Mingyu's face, Mingyu's lips and tongue seeking their goal.

It's hot, humid, the musk of him earthy, something just to the left of human to it, some flavor that makes the experience like no man Mingyu has ever touched like this. Jihoon's fingers buried in his hair, his hand on his forearm gripping like a vice, that is familiar. That makes Mingyu's breath come out shaky on a moan.

Mingyu works him open, tender and starving. Jihoon moans encouragement in languages Mingyu only half understands, the sound washing over and through him like a river, burning like flame. When Jihoon comes, it's with Mingyu's tongue speared inside of him, Mingyu's hair in his fingers, Mingyu's heart in his hands.

Jihoon collapses to the side, chest heaving. His hand is resting, splayed and possessive, over Mingyu's belly. Breath caught, he turns back to Mingyu, takes him by the jaw, and kisses him, sloppy and deep.

"Touch yourself," he says, mouth still so close to Mingyu's. "Don't come until I tell you to."

The moan is pulled out of Mingyu's chest like Jihoon reached inside him and dragged it from his heart. Mingyu wraps a hand around himself, and it's only then that he realizes how close he is, how hard, how desperate. His hips arch off the ground against his will, cock sliding rough through the circle of his own grip.

Jihoon slings a leg over his belly, knees wide. He plants his elbows on either side of Mingyu's head, bending down until his face blots out the sun and he's all Mingyu can see. Mingyu is close, so close, hips arching up with every frantic pull on his cock, panting out gasping moans.

"Now." Jihoon's voice reverberates in Mingyu's chest and he comes, shouting, and the world goes white.

Blue blue sky, and the feeling of Jihoon's eyes on his face come back to him first. He wants to say something unreasonable, release the endless feeling in his chest like a flock of birds into the air. Mingyu turns and kisses Jihoon instead. Jihoon kisses back, soft as birdsong, and it's almost as good as the words.

***

Junhui comes by a few days later, electing to get out of his practical pickup truck with the mail instead of leaving it in the mailbox and waving like he usually did. He has a package under one arm, a six pack of beer dangling from the other fingers, and he’s whistling the Sailor Moon theme, a skip in his step.

“Hiya!” Junhui calls to Mingyu when he gets close enough, startling the raven that had been watching him silently from a fence post. The bird caws loudly, making Junhui jump badly, swearing. He doesn’t so much as fumble the beers or the package. “The fuck, bird?!” he shouts back at the raven, which just makes him ruffle his black feathers and tuck his beak nonchalantly under his wing.

Mingyu tries to laugh silently but Junhui catches him at it anyway and sticks his tongue out at him. With a roll of his shoulders, Mingyu puts down the rasp he’d been using to try to rough out some broad shapes in the trunk of the tree. He stretches his arms over his head and pops his neck, sighing happily when he lets his arms back down again. Junhui’s eyes, which had very obviously been staring at the place his shirt had ridden up, exposing his abdominals, snap up to Mingyu’s, a good natured leer and eyebrow waggle already sitting pretty on his face. He wolf whistles and Mingyu covers his blush by telling him to shut up.

“Package for you,” Junhui says when he’s come near enough, bowing while holding the box out to Mingyu with a flourish that really should look more awkward than it does considering he’s flourishing with a six pack of beer. Mingyu takes the package and jerks his head toward the cabin’s patio.

“You can drop the beers off up there,” he says, grinning at Junhui who gasps theatrically and puts a hand over his heart.

“I come to you, with gifts no less, and this is how you treat me? Just for that you get _ no _ cute kitten Christmas card from _ me,” _ Junhui huffs, sticks his nose high in the air and marches haughtily to the porch and up the steps. 

Mingyu looks down at the package and instantly recognizes Seokmin’s handwriting. The postmark is from a small coastal town he remembers Minghao having mentioned before, though the two of them never did get around to visiting it. He pulls his pocket knife and uses it to gently open the box, flicking the knife closed again before he peers inside. There’s a small bag of cookies, homemade by the looks of them, and a plush golden retriever. Junhui makes a high pitched sound and pounces on the cookies the second Mingyu sets them on the small table on the porch next to the beers. A piece of paper is neatly folded and tied with a ribbon around the dog’s neck.

_ Looks like you, _ written in Minghao’s familiar handwriting, is the only note.

Mingyu isn’t surprised at the development. Minghao and Seokmin had always liked each other, and even when they fought it was more like nonverbal negotiation than true fighting. It made sense, that they’d find each other, and Mingyu finds himself honestly glad that Minghao had someone, glad for them both, really, and their little house by the sea.

He and Junhui sit on the porch with the beers, Junhui surprisingly quiet for the first time since Mingyu met him. The sun is setting over the trees, not quite the full riot of color that it would become, but still peaceful and introspective, quiet but for the chirping of birds and the wind rustling the foliage of the forest around them.

Eventually Junhui starts fidgeting and looking around. He picks up the carving Mingyu had left on the table, his first attempt at a little bluebird, rough around the edges, but cheerful in spite of it all. Junhui spins the bird in his fingers, pulling it almost all the way to his nose, whistling admiringly and stroking the bird’s tiny head.

“You made this?” he asks. Mingyu nods and scuffs a foot along the floorboards. “Fan-fucking-tastic.” Junhui says it almost under his breath. “Cheep,” he whispers, booping the bird on the beak.

“You can have it,” Mingyu offers. Junhui whips his head to stare at him, eyes huge like he’d offered him a pile of cash.

“Really??” His voice squeaks at the end of the question and he cradles the bird, still stroking its head like it was truly alive. “Oh, but I can’t,” he murmurs the last regretfully, looking back at the bird and sticking out his bottom lip in a pout.

“I’ve sold more of them online, better ones,” Mingyu says. Junhui scoffs and mutters something about ‘better’. “No really,” Mingyu continues, “that one’s yours. I can’t sell it now.” Junhui looks at him like he’s trying to discreetly check for bullshit, so Mingyu just smiles, open and honest, letting Junhui see that he means it.

“Thank you,” Junhui says, delightedly. They sit in silence again for a minute, Junhui still stroking the bird with his thumb. “You know,” Junhui says into the comfortable quiet, “I always dreamed of being a bird.”

Mingyu thinks about the tree that gave that bluebird’s branch to him, and he smiles into his beer.

***

Two months pass, winter coming in quickly in the high forest. The cold winds frost Mingyu’s breath and shorten his walks through the forest well before snow begins to fall, blanketing the landscape in a deep white hush. Many of the animals find their way to hibernation, or simply spend more time in burrows and safe cozy spaces Mingyu can’t see. A lot of the birds stay, but they’re quieter too, less prone to following him around even when he does venture out, leaving deep footprints in his wake.

For the most part Mingyu spends his time in his workshop, slowly making progress on the chair. He doesn’t write down a plan for the chair, like he normally would, doesn’t draw out designs on paper before he attempts them on wood. Instead, he lets his hands guide the way. It’s a strangely meditative process, one he’s not used to. Most of the time he turns on a pop playlist Junhui made for him, lets the energy of the music flow through him, and watches the intricate inlays of the chair come slowly to life beneath his hands. 

Mingyu goes to sleep with the scent of sawdust filling his nostrils. He wakes up from fitful, incomplete dreams of the shimmering tattoos on Jihoon’s back.

The raven that followed him the most throughout the rest of the year sits perched outside the workshop window, watching his progress even through the glass. Mingyu opens the window one day, when a terrible snow storm lashes show and ice against the bird, and cradles him carefully into the shelter of the workshop until the raven is finally warm enough to squawk indignantly.

After that the bird stays inside with him throughout the day, curiously hopping across the shop, inspecting his work, pecking at the window when he wants in or out. Mingyu learns the bird likes EXO and Red Velvet the best, bopping along to the beat and letting out the occasional caw, and hates it when he uses the bandsaw, forever flapping in alarm whenever Mingyu turns it on.

Even through the dark of winter and the pervasive cold, Mingyu finds himself smiling, and the chair, slowly but surely, takes its shape.

Jihoon doesn’t come home. Mingyu tries not to worry.

***

With the roads getting slick and snowy, and the snowplow not consistently making it out to his cabin, Mingyu’s trips into town become more rare as the days get colder, packing more food stuffs into his car when he does go. Which is why it takes him a while to find out that Joshua has another man helping him at the grocer during the winter.

Mingyu shoves into the shop quickly, little bell tinkling overhead, and stomps snow off his boots, shivering in the sudden warmth of the indoors.

“Hi,” a new voice says, and Mingyu shoots his head up. The man looking at him has long blonde hair tied up in a messy ponytail at his nape. A quick glance at his nametag tells Mingyu his name is Jeonghan. He’s pretty, alarmingly so, and has a look in his eye like he knows that was Mingyu’s first thought. They stand in an odd frozen tableau, each of them obviously checking each other out, until Mingyu shakes himself and smiles, trying to shrink into his jacket and appear friendly.

“Hi,” he says. He adds a very awkward little wave for emphasis.

Joshua comes out of a back room carrying a box, and Jeonghan smiles, finally, never looking away from Mingyu. 

“I like him,” Jeonghan says, clearly to Joshua, and leans an elbow on the counter to cup his chin in his palm. Joshua just chuckles and shakes his head.

“Hi Mingyu, I see you’ve met my terror of a husband,” Joshua says, explaining everything and also absolutely nothing. Mingyu decides not to think about it too hard and gives another awkward wave before going about his shopping.

Once he’s finally gotten his entire car load of assorted goods, plus some extra emergency supplies just in case he gets cut off from town completely by snow, Jeonghan comes out from the back room while Joshua’s ringing Mingyu up. He’s carrying a paper bag that smells chocolatey and delicious, clearly freshly made by how warm whatever’s inside it is when Mingyu takes it from him. When he takes a peek, he sees two perfect squares of brownie, warm fragrant air billowing out of the bag.

“Joshua’s recipe,” Jeonghan says with an exaggerated eyebrow lift, and Joshua beams.

***

There's a break in the snow when Mingyu packages up a chess set he hand carved, walnut for black, birch for white. The pieces are simple yet elegant, traditional shapes with the barest hint of extra flare. He sanded them so they're smooth as glass, butter on the fingers.

Carefully placed into the box along with the board and more padding than strictly necessary, Mingyu seals the box and letters his father's name and address on the top with steady hands.

His father taught him how to play as a child, patiently explaining the rules of the game, the moves of the pieces. Mingyu was always horrible at it, never having the mind for that kind of long term strategy or subterfuge. _ "You need to be more subtle, Mingyu," _ his father always said, half of a laugh hidden behind his stern face. _ "You can't just go barging in taking pieces. You'll lose to every halfway decent player." _

Mingyu thinks about writing a note, but he doesn't, in the end. He can't decide what he would want to say.

_ I'm sorry. _

_ I love you. _

_ I think I finally found a game I can play. _

***

Mingyu stands back from the chair, the scent of lacquer still in the air from the final coat he’d just finished applying to it. The chair gleams in the overhead lights of the shop, smooth and silky wood wrapping over itself in an intricate and dizzying array of carved motifs. Some of it is recognizable; birds flitting through as though coming out from behind trees, foxes hiding behind knots in the wood, humanoid figures that may or may not have been entangled in each other’s bodies. Some of it almost looks like conventional wood carving designs, except for the way they’re twisted, just so, until it’s like looking at a foreign language, setting off a buzzing behind Mingyu’s eyes whenever he looks at it.

The raven perches on a shelf next to him, blinking and tipping his head from side to side. The bird looks at Mingyu, gurgles, and then flaps over to the window to peck on it. Mingyu opens it, and watches him hop out onto the snow-covered ledge before disappearing into the trees.

On a whim he blames on being sick of the lights and the smells of the workshop, Mingyu decides to take the chair into the cabin living room, to see what it looks like in its more natural environment. It suits the space, in an almost eccentric way, looking nothing like any of the other furniture, but it’s lovely, objectively speaking, like it had grown there instead of simply having been set down. 

Mingyu doesn’t sit in the chair. He doesn’t really ask himself why.

When he comes back into the cabin, later, the sky gone dark with early night and his arms filled with firewood, Jihoon is sitting in the chair, eyes closed, skin pale from exhaustion, bruises deep under his eyes, looking like he hasn’t rested in weeks. His hair is ash grey, and limp.

The chair fits him perfectly. It suits him, almost as though Jihoon himself had dreamed it into being.

_ A chair to cradle someone in love, _ Mingyu thinks.

Mingyu takes care not to wake him, if he is sleeping, lights a fire in the grate with quiet care, and picks up a battered old paperback. They stay like that, only the sounds of the crackling fire, Mingyu turning the pages of his book, and the rise and fall of Jihoon’s chest to break the silence.

When Mingyu looks up from his book, hours later, Jihoon is looking at him, sparkling eyes bright over his still wan face. Tension crackles between them like lightning, lighting something Mingyu had almost forgotten was simmering in his heart, in the pit of his belly.

Mingyu puts down his book, and climbs into Jihoon’s lap.

***

With his feet on the floor and his hips settled firmly over Jihoon's, Mingyu realizes the chair was made for this, for Mingyu to be cradled in Jihoon's arms, his body supported by the man he loves. He realizes that a man in love is not alone.

"I love you." Mingyu says it like a prayer, says it with his heart and mouth both. He kisses Jihoon, and says it like that, too.

Later, after long fierce kisses, and roaming hands, after Mingyu rises just long enough to peel himself from his clothes for his singular rapt audience, after one, two, three fingers, slick and hot and insistent, Mingyu takes Jihoon inside of him. Jihoon leans his head against the back of the chair and holds Mingyu's hips in a bruising tight grip.

They rock together in the firelight, slow at first, reverent and aching, awe in every movement. And then, suddenly, it isn't enough, Mingyu needs more, more skin, more force, more of Jihoon inside of him even though it isn't possible. Jihoon matches him, rocking up into him, hands controlling Mingyu's movements, tilting Mingyu's hips until lighting strikes inside of him, making him shout.

Jihoon wraps his arms around Mingyu and pulls him forward until he can bite at Mingyu's chest, teeth leaving marks in his flesh, tongue and lips to soothe.

"Baby," Jihoon pants over the sound of their bodies colliding. He reaches between them and pulls on Mingyu's cock and calls Mingyu something else, something in a language he doesn't know. It's the love choking his voice that tips Mingyu over the edge, Jihoon following so close after him it makes his entire body tingle with aftershocks, with the closeness of Jihoon inside of him, beneath him, everywhere.

They trade kisses, sloppy and loose, hands wandering like even as close as they can be they still cannot bear to be apart.

Jihoon pulls back and raises an eyebrow at Mingyu, smirking, before he stands, carrying a laughing Mingyu with him. He tosses Mingyu onto the bed, grinning in satisfaction while Mingyu bounces. As Mingyu watches, Jihoon's face goes soft in stages, until every inch is unmistakably fond. He lays beside Mingyu on the bed, palm warm and gentle on Mingyu's cheek.

"Thank you," Jihoon whispers into the night.

"For what?" Mingyu asks, equally quiet.

Jihoon traces the back of his fingers over the lines of Mingyu's face. "You made me something, from wood. You fulfilled your half of our pact."

Mingyu's mind races and his blood runs cold. Since Jihoon had taught him how to speak to the trees, Mingyu wondered, if Mingyu had fulfilled his half and the deal was complete, did that mean he wouldn't come back again? He sits up, dislodging Jihoon's hand.

"No," he says, almost frantic. "No, I, it wasn't _ for you," _ but even as he says it he knows it isn't true. He had thought of Jihoon every minute, with every breath he took while constructing the chair, while carving it, while dreaming of it at night. He looks down at his forearm, at the place he’d traced countless times, fingers over the ash grey mark of a feather branded into his skin. There’s nothing there, flesh unblemished and bare. Mingyu keens.

Jihoon sits up, mirroring him, both hands on his biceps as he shushes him. 

"I'm not going anywhere, if that's what you're afraid of," he says, and Mingyu lets out a shaky breath. Jihoon's eyes go suddenly serious. "You made me more than a _ chair. _ It's beautiful, more powerful than you know but." He pauses, swallows, strokes Mingyu's arms. "You made me a home, Mingyu. I haven't had one in such a long, long time."

The fire crackles in the grate as they breathe in tandem, in and out, in and out. Mingyu takes Jihoon's hands in his, and presses a kiss to Jihoon's palms, first one, then the other.

"Welcome home," Mingyu says. Jihoon smiles.

***

Mingyu stands on his porch and looks out at the snow-covered world, door closed behind him to keep in the warmth, steam coming off the surface of his coffee, breath fogging in the chill. He spots the foxes playing at the edge of the forest, snow flying into their air as the young ones wrestle, mother watching her nearly-grown cubs. The raven caws his 'good morning' as he swoops in to perch on the porch railing, burbling happily in Mingyu's direction.

With fingers warmed by the mug of hot coffee, Mingyu fishes his phone out of his pocket, swiping the screen to unlock it. He hovers his thumb over his father's name in his contacts. The raven shuffles closer to him. The mother fox looks up at him in the snow. Mingyu imagines he can hear Jihoon's gentle exhausted snores from his bed.

He taps the screen and puts the phone to his ear.

One ring, two rings, three.

"Mingyu?"

His voice is the same as it ever was, big hands on small shoulders, big hands on broad shoulders, stern words and warm words, laughter and arms that held him when he cried tears bigger than his body. Mingyu swallows twice around the lump in his throat.

“Hi, appa,” Mingyu says, voice small in the hush of a world that has shrunk to the size of his phone in his hand. A long minute passes, the two of them listening to each other breathe across the line.

“I worried,” his father says, the shake of truth in the words.

“I know,” Mingyu says. He hopes he can hear the apology.

Another long minute passes. Mingyu spots an owl watching him from high in a tree, blended almost perfectly with the trunk. He tries to imagine his father, sitting in his armchair, hand wrapped around a mug of the herbal tea his doctor had made him switch to a few years ago that makes him purse his lips in dissatisfaction every time he takes a drink and it isn’t coffee. 

“Did you get the chess set?” Mingyu asks, scuffing the toe of his boot on the bottom of the porch railing.

“Yes, I did,” his father replies. “It’s beautiful, Mingyu.”

Mingyu ducks his head to hide the warmth in his cheeks from no one but himself. It takes him two tries to say “Thank you,” around the ball of feeling that’s bloomed in his chest.

There’s a sound from inside the cabin. Mingyu imagines Jihoon waking up, shuffling into the kitchen and scoffing in disgust as he searches the cupboards for something even remotely resembling a vegetable.

“Are you happy?” The question brings Mingyu back out to the porch, fingers going numb where they hold the phone to his ear. His voice is smaller than Mingyu has ever heard it. The distance between them squeezes Mingyu’s heart for the first time in a long time.

Mingyu thinks before he answers. He thinks about Junhui, coming over for beers and kdramas, about Jeonghan and Joshua and the way they tease him and always manage to slip something into his bag of groceries. He thinks about the raven, preening his feathers next to him, and the fox family that stays close to him because he makes them feel safe. He thinks about Jihoon, and slow lovemaking, and finding a home in his heart he’d quit believing existed. He thinks about long lonely nights, about never being sure when he’ll see Jihoon again, _ if _ he’ll see Jihoon again. And he thinks about how behind him, in his tiny cabin at the edge of a magic wood, even in the depths of the coldest winter it is always, always warm.

“Yeah,” he says. “I think I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for coming on this journey with me, I hope you enjoyed it and please leave me a comment to let me know what you thought, even small comments mean more than I can truly say. <3


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